A
cabinet, which stands about chest-high, sits in the corner of the apartment. It
means very little to anyone, except for the woman whose 70th birthday is being
celebrated on a fine night in 1980. For the woman's niece, who now has
possession of it, it's a gift, a hand-me-down, from her beloved aunt. For the
aunt, it's the thing that calls to mind the fond memory of an intimate encounter
with the man she loved. He has since died, but in the prologue of Aquarius, she makes certain to offer a toast to him on this evening.

In the
present day, the niece still lives in the apartment in the well-to-do part of
the city of Recife, Brazil. The cabinet still sits there. What was once a memory
for the aunt is now a memory of the aunt. "They don't make them like her
anymore," a relative says. Clara (Sonia Braga), the niece who is now much
closer to a 70th birthday than the age she was on her aunt's milestone, silently
agrees.

The
aunt has gone, but so, too, has Clara's husband, who offered another toast that
night some 35 years ago. It was to his wife, who endured multiple visits to the
hospital, tough chemotherapy treatment, and a mastectomy to overcome breast
cancer.

This
apartment has seen plenty of joy, like the aunt's party, and pain, like Clara's
struggle with cancer and the loss of her husband at a too-early age. It has
become a memento unto itself, filled with other reminders of the past, such as
the cabinet that secretly meant one thing to its previous owner and something
else entirely to its current possessor, and a constant realization that those
times, as well as the people who populated them, are gone.

Clara
is the final resident of the apartment complex. Everyone else has packed up and
left, having signed a deal with a construction company that wants to demolish
the building and erect a new structure. Diego (Humberto Carrão), a company
representative, has made Clara a very generous cash offer. She declines, resists
the pressures of the company and the former residents (who won't get what they
were offered until the plan goes through), and finds herself in a
passive-aggressive war of attrition with the company that eventually turns into
something like biological warfare.

This
resolution seems simple: Clara takes the offer and, using the money from the
sale, finds a different place to live. The company wants it to happen. The
former residents want it. Even Clara's children question her decision to stay.
When Clara's daughter Ana (Maeve Jinkings) finds out how much the company is
offering, she is stunned that "this apartment" would be worth that
much to anyone. Clara hears the little emphasis on and pause after the word
"this." The two argue, and it becomes heated. Ana wonders how her
mother can be stubborn like an old woman and a child. It's because, Clara says,
she is both an old lady and a child.

That's
fair and honest insight from a character whose day-to-day struggles with grief,
as well as the way this escalating conflict with the construction company only
amplifies those feelings, are at the heart of the film. She's a woman who, even
17 years after the death of her husband, still hasn't figured out how she's
supposed to live her life.

She
wants to have a child-like sense of freedom, but things don't work out that way
for her. Clara goes to a club with some friends, and a man, a widower about her
age, asks if she'll dance with him. They end up in his car, and while they kiss
like teenagers, his hands move to her chest. She explains what happened to her
right breast, and his mood instantly drops. She ends up getting a ride home in a
taxi. Later, on the recommendation of a friend, she calls a gigolo (partially to
compete with the orgy being held by the friends of a company employee in
apartment directly above hers). The night goes well, but after, she's haunted by
the notion that someone has broken into and stalks around her apartment. Is it
just the usual fear of being alone and, hence, vulnerable, or is it some form of
guilt?

What we
know for certain is that Clara, a retired music journalist, has a deep
attachment to tangible things. Her music collection sprawls across shelves, and
during an interview, she accepts the notion of digital platforms while lamenting
the loss of the stories that physical media bring with them. She pulls out a
copy of John Lennon's final album, released three weeks after his murder. She
bought it at a used record store, and in it, she found an article, published a
month before his death, discussing the artist's plans for the future. It's the
kind of cosmic coincidence to which she, a woman who is losing more family
members and friends than she's gaining, can relate.

The
apartment is her final connection to the life she once knew and is unready to
abandon. The film, written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, is a string
of scenes in which Clara must confront her conflict between the lure of—and
feelings of need to honor—the past and the freedom of—and the anxiety of
taking advantage of that freedom within—the present.

While
Mendonça Filho's approach offers something akin to a respectful distance from
Clara's inner life (A silent scene at her husband's grave, for example, doesn't
force the character to bear her soul), Braga's performance is fully open about
the ways in which this character handles these conflicts—within herself and
with the company. The combination makes Aquarius
a thoughtful and revealing study of this woman's battles.